The Detention Center
Pend Oreille County Correctional Facility (Pend Oreille County Jail)
- Operated byPend Oreille County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address331 S. Garden Ave (PO Box 5075), Newport, WA 99156 — 509-447-3151
- Published capacity40 beds (county Corrections page)
- Rated beds (state figure)36 — WASPC 2025 Annual Jail Statistics
- Average daily population 202514.9, against 36 rated beds (WASPC 2025)
- Throughput 2025406 admissions, average length of stay 13.25 days (WASPC 2025)
- In-custody death 2025Yes — the Sheriff's Office answered 'Yes' to in-custody deaths in the WASPC 2025 return. No Department of Health unexpected-fatality review naming this facility has been posted, and the county publishes nothing about it
- Housing contractsThe county says the facility maintains housing contracts with the Washington State Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and holds inmates from other agencies. No rates are published
- Health carePend Oreille Counseling Services and the Sheriff's Chaplain Corp visit regularly; Newport Community Hospital medical staff run an in-house clinic
- Phone and messagingConsolidated Telecom (CTEL) owns and maintains the inmate phone system; a 'Chirp' text-messaging device carries a monthly fee and flat message rates, but the county publishes no figures and points to inmatesales.com
- Year built / original cost / fundingNot found — checked the Corrections page, Posting Bail, Bail Bond Agencies, Court Appearances, Emergency Messages, Inmate Commissary, Mail, Phone and Property, Medical Care, Visiting Times & Rules, and the Auditor's budgets page
Source: Pend Oreille County — Corrections · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds40 according to the county Corrections page; 36 rated beds in the WASPC 2025 Annual Jail Statistics
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Glenn Blakeslee
- Runs the jailYes — the county states the Pend Oreille County Correctional Facility 'is a division of the Pend Oreille County Sheriff's Office'; no county department of corrections has been created
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term (RCW 36.16.030)
- Jail commandA Corrections Captain and a Corrections Sergeant, plus corrections officers
- Office331 S. Garden Ave (PO Box 5075), Newport, WA 99156 — 509-447-3151
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Pend Oreille County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Washington Superior Court judges are elected in nonpartisan countywide races and District Court judges in nonpartisan district races. Both are state judicial officers, not county officials — the county pays part of the cost but does not choose the judge. A judge, not the sheriff or the jail, sets bail. Vacancies are filled by gubernatorial appointment until the next election. Court rosters here come from the Administrative Office of the Courts' county directory.
Pend Oreille County Superior Court — 229 S Garden Ave, Newport (the bench is shared across the north-east Washington judicial district; Judge Malpass and the court administrator sit at 215 S Oak, Colville)
- Lisa Malpass, Judge
- Lech J. Radzimski, Judge
- Thomas F. Webster, Judge
- Robin R. McCroskey, Commissioner
Pend Oreille County District Court — 229 S Garden Ave, Newport
- Robin R. McCroskey, Judge
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The county publishes a bed count (40) but no current population figure, so the capacity check is recorded 'no'. The inmate roster is published as a document in a county Box folder linked from the county's own navigation.
- The county names four outside agencies it holds prisoners for — the state Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — but publishes no contract and no per-day rate, so the contracts check is recorded 'no'.
- Pend Oreille reported an in-custody death for 2025 to WASPC. Nothing about it appears on the county site, and no unexpected-fatality review for the facility appears on the Department of Health register, which the state itself notes is incompletely complied with.
- The county's Posting Bail page is clear and specific: cash bail or surety bonds from approved companies only, accepted 24 hours a day at the jail, or at the court that issued the bond order during clerk's-office hours with a card.
- No PREA page, no inspection or accreditation result, and no phone, video-visit or commissary rates are published. The 2025 and 2026 county budget PDFs are scanned images; the Jail department line was confirmed by reading the scanned 2025 budget.
- Board of County Commissioners — three commissioners: John Gentle (District 1), Robert Rosencrantz (District 2, Vice Chair), Brian Smiley (District 3). The Board typically meets Mondays and Tuesdays in the courthouse at 625 West 4th Street, Newport. The county budget carries a Jail department (001-000-420). No jail district and no dedicated jail tax were found.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Pend Oreille County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
The county auditor runs the election in Pend Oreille County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from USA.gov and vote.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered